Tyler Cowen

In his work, economist Tyler Cowen looks at clues from pop culture, art, food, to gather data and make observations on the world's globalizing culture and commerce.

Why you should listen

Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics at George Mason University, and partners with Alex Tabarrok to write the economics blog Marginal Revolution, where he hunts for clues to whatever is coming next, in the space where economics and culture entwine. His outlook is fairly libertarian, but it's not ivory-tower -- in fact, he's been accused of "cute-o-nomics" for daring to use economic models to explain real-world problems instead of theoretical abstractions.